How to buy a new car and not get screwed

In this six-minute video from Ignite Seattle, Rob Gruhl offers advice on getting a good deal when shopping for a new car.

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Flying Remote Controlled UFO Lamp feels like its Armageddon

Lamps have always been perched in one dingy corner of the room and are subjected to providing light to the rest of the house. Moving a lamp around the house is normally thought to be a stupid thing to do but when the need arises it causes a lot of inconvenience with wires all over the place.

The Flying UFO lamp we have here has something that most other lamps don’t – a remote controlled facility that can light up places that you cannot take the lamp to. There are a couple of rotary blades placed on the top of the lamp that allows it to take flight.

The UFO Lamp has to be preordered from NCSX shop and will ship in November 2008. It will cost $23.

source

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Aqua submersible watercraft, future transport vehicles

With the traffic going crazy and everyone concentrating on the high skies, two University of Seoul student designers Sungchul Yang and Woonghee Han are planning on exploiting the other mode-water. Now I know boats have been around for centuries, but what these boys are trying to provide is a novel way of individual transport. The Aqua submersible watercraft is a one-person craft that is capable of skimming the waters as well as plunging deep beneath. Sporting a dolphin like shape, this design won the 2008 Silver Idea Design Award. The design theoretically is a consequence of apt study pertaining to buoyancy control, oxygen supply and driver protection from the unrelenting water pressure.

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Microsoft Makes Windows Live Messenger Available to BlackBerries

The good folks over at Messenger Stuff have spotted a download link on the Blackberry web site for Windows Live Messenger (a set of Terms and Conditions must be accepted). In other words, the world's most popular instant messaging network can now be accessed from the official client on the world's most popular smartphone. Instant messages (including group chats) are sent and received using BlackBerry push technology. Windows Live Messenger for BlackBerry also allows the user to set custom status messages, log chats, show a Display Picture, use 60+ emoticons, and even send and receive pictures and files. The client is simple and lightweight, and aesthetically it isn't half bad.

Back in May, Research in Motion (RIM) and Microsoft made an announcement detailing that Windows Live services were arriving on the Blackberry platform. "Sometime this summer" apparently translated to July, at least for the mobile version of Windows Live Messenger. RIM and Microsoft previously said that "multiple languages" would be supported, but now we know that the client is available in Arabic, Chinese (China), Chinese (Taiwan), Czech, Dutch (Netherlands), English, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish. Windows Live Hotmail for Blackberry doesn't seem to have arrived yet, but we'll keep you posted when it does. Both Windows Live services are available by signing into a Windows Live account just once.

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Slowdown in Online Advertising Hits Yahoo

SAN FRANCISCO — With the slowing economy taking a toll on the online advertising business, Yahoo said Tuesday that its net income dropped by nearly 19 percent in the second quarter from a year ago as revenue grew at a sluggish 6 percent rate.

Analysts said the results would do little to improve Yahoo’s negotiating position with Microsoft, which has tried to buy all or part of the company. “This is not a quarter where they can go back to Microsoft and say they deserve a higher price,” said Youssef H. Squali, an analyst with Jefferies & Company. “And Microsoft can’t come to them and say the business is falling out of bed and we can pick you up for a song.”

Jerry Yang, the co-founder and chief executive, said he was pleased with the company’s performance, especially in light of what we described as “extraordinary events,” including Microsoft’s takeover attempts and the proxy fight with the investor Carl C. Icahn, which was settled Monday.

“The indicators of Yahoo’s progress are promising,” Mr. Yang said in a conference call with investors.

The results fell slightly short of analysts’ lowered expectations. But to the relief of investors, Yahoo left financial forecasts for the remainder of the year largely unchanged despite ongoing economic uncertainty.

Yahoo said that net income for the quarter was $131 million, or 9 cents a share, compared to $161 million, or 11 cents a share, a year ago. On average, Wall Street analysts had expected Yahoo to report net income of 11 cents a share. Yahoo said its profit was hit by $22 million in costs associated with the negotiations with Microsoft, the proxy fight and related lawsuits.

Revenue was $1.8 billion, compared with $1.7 billion in the same quarter last year. Net revenue, which excludes commissions to advertising partners, was $1.35 billion, up 8 percent, from $1.24 billion a year ago. On average analysts expected net revenue to be $1.37 billion.

By comparison, rival Google reported last week that its revenue for the second quarter grew at 39 percent.

During the conference call, Yahoo’s president, Susan Decker, highlighted the importance of keeping Yahoo’s search advertising and display advertising business together. Noting that Yahoo’s share of search queries in the United States had inched up in the past two months — after months of declines — she said that she believed Yahoo could succeed in the search business, where it is a distant second to Google.

Her remarks appeared aimed at persuading shareholders that the company was right in rejecting recent offers by Microsoft to buy Yahoo’s search business.

Despite the truce with Mr. Icahn, who agreed to drop his fight for control of the company in exchange for three seats on an expanded Yahoo board, Yahoo shares remain in a slump and the company is facing mounting questions about its plans to reignite growth in the wake of its failed talks with Microsoft.

Earlier this year, Yahoo executives gave a rosy three-year forecast for growth, which few investors believe the company will be able to meet. And many shareholders, including Mr. Icahn, believe that the best course of action is for Yahoo to resume negotiations with Microsoft.

On Tuesday, Yahoo’s shares closed at $21.40, down 1.25 percent, and far below the $33 a share that Microsoft offered for the company on May 3. After Yahoo rejected that offer as too low — it wanted at least $37 a share — Microsoft withdrew it and said it was no longer interested in buying all of Yahoo. In the face of growing shareholder discontent, Yahoo has said recently that it would consider selling itself for $33 a share.

Yahoo shares rose to $21.89 in after-hours trading following the company’s financial report.

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Google Waves Bloggers Bye-Bye - Not all, though, just the PayPerPost ones

It’s official, Google’s got issues with the morally questionable PayPerPost. The Mountain View based mammoth started punishing the respective bloggers by completely removing their page rank.

It was only last week that Google made its opinion on the freedom of speech available for all to read in a blog that obviously encouraged it (it’s not

communism with censorship after all). Well, right now Ted Murphy, CEO of IZEA (the new holding company for PayPerPost) is actually accusing Google of just that freedom of speech right infringement and censorship conspiracy. Furthermore he claims that this is a part of a Google attempt to deny competition, PayPerPost being a very attractive alternative to AdSense. Now those are some serious accusations I think.

On the other hand, this move from Google will most probably ultimately lead to the disappearance of PayPerPost, as I can’t really think that anybody would be pleased to lose page ranking and not do anything about it. A mass migration will probably occur to a place that will prove to be more reliable and it will leave a big inventory deficiency that will result in diminished revenues making the PayPerPost business model unsustainable going forward.

As a matter of fact when I rephrase it and think it over it actually does sound like a conspiracy aimed at taking down a potential rival… Of course, the ethics of the whole deal are really shady and it’s not exactly the best way to go and be completely and honestly happy (or at least that’s the deal with me) about yourself. Ah, it’s very complicated, with morality issues on the one hand and with Google’s going Terminator 3 at PayPerPost’s neck on the other… complicated.

After all it is an alternative way for the little guy to make money and that’s a good thing after all. (By: Vlad Constandes, SEO News Editor)

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